Hydrocarbon producing formations typically have sand commingled with the hydrocarbons to be produced. For various reasons, it is not desirable to produce the commingled sand to the earth's surface. Thus, sand control completion techniques are used to prevent the production of sand.
A commonly used sand control technique is a gravel pack. Gravel packs typically utilize a screen or the like that is lowered into the borehole and positioned adjacent a hydrocarbon producing zone, which is to be completed. Particulate material, collectively referred to as “gravel,” is then pumped as slurry into the borehole through a sand control sliding sleeve extension, which is directly located downhole of the sand control packer. The liquid in the slurry flows into the formation and/or through the openings in the screen resulting in the gravel being deposited in an annulus formed in the borehole between the screen and the borehole. The gravel forms a permeable mass or “pack” between the screen and the producing formation. The gravel pack allows flow of the produced fluids therethrough while substantially blocking the flow of any particulate material, e.g., sand or silt.
Once gravel packing is completed, the excess gravel and proppant (gravel slurry carrier fluid) is reversed out of the service tool and workstring. The service tool is then withdrawn from the lower completion. During withdrawal, to prevent and control production and/or losses from and/or into the formation, a formation isolation well control barrier device closes the flow path up the tubing and a sleeve slides to close off the flow path through the sand control sliding sleeve extension. Thus, the formation is isolated by the formation isolation well control barrier device inside the tubular downhole of the sand screen and by the gravel pack packer uphole of the sand screen. In this system, the sleeve which covers the sand control sliding sleeve extension must also hold back pressure to prevent undesired premature production from the formation. However, in critical applications, such as subsea or deepwater completions, if the sand control sleeve, which is located between the sand control packer and the formation isolation well control barrier device, fails to establish a pressure seal, a well control issue may be introduced. Currently, to partially recover from this challenging situation one may either pump in LCM pills, which may damage the formation, or pump in a huge volume of costly fluids.
There is a desire, therefore, for new systems and methods that reduce or eliminate the possibility for the sleeve covering the sand screen to leak thereby compromising the isolation of the formation.